Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are polymorphism that includes mutations at a single base within a DNA sequence formed of a plurality of bases. It has been known that differences in such nucleotide sequence cause personal differences in, for example, drug metabolism and the like.
Through the recent development of a gene test technique, nucleic acid is extracted from a specimen such as a biological sample taken from, for example, a patient, and differences in a gene such as SNPs are detected. The possibility is suggested that sensitivity to medicines can be predicted in advance by differences in genes. Accordingly, it is considered that a so-called tailor-made medical treatment (which is also referred to as order-made medical treatment) will be realized, which provides the optimum medical treatment (drug) for each patient while reducing the side effects of medicines.
A nucleic acid analyzer, which supplies a whole blood sample taken from a patient to a cartridge and purifies and analyzes nucleic acid using the cartridge, is disclosed in, for example, Patent Document 1 as a device that performs this gene test. According to the nucleic acid analyzer disclosed in Patent Document 1, it is possible to reduce a user's workload on the nucleic acid analysis by reducing the dependence on a user's manual work. In addition, it is possible to increase the reproducibility of the nucleic acid analysis without variations in the collection rate for nucleic acid that is caused by differences in the users' skill.
Further, a gene detection-determination device, which can measure a plurality of SNPs at one time by forming a plurality of reaction chambers used to measure a plurality of SNPs, is disclosed in Patent Document 2. According to this gene detection-determination device, it is possible to suppress the occurrence of human errors or contamination and to increase the accuracy of a gene test.